Today marked the opening of 1 World Trade Center, an emotional culmination of a tenuous planning and building process that stretched over the 13 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers.

A series of special EarthCam webcams document the growth of the site to "honor the victims of 9/11 and are dedicated to their families and friends, with special gratitude to the first responders," according to the website.

This commemorative time-lapse movie, highlights progress at the so-called Freedom Tower site from October 2004 to September 2013, including the installation of the spire, bringing it to a staggering height of 1,776 feet. Hundreds of thousands of high definition images were captured over the past nine years and hand-edited for this video, according to the description.

"It's the centerpiece of the 16-acre site where the decimated twin towers once stood and where more than 2,700 people died on Sept. 11, 2001, buried under smoking mounds of fiery debris," the Associated Press reported.

"The New York City skyline is whole again, as 1 World Trade Center takes its place in Lower Manhattan," said Patrick Foye, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns both the building and the World Trade Center site.